Belief, Bible Study, Finding, Ghosts, God, Purgatory, Seeking, Souls

Souls, Purgatory, and Ghosts (with an explanation of Plumber Porn as a chaser)

Mike Bevel

Do you have a soul? We have to start with what a soul is, which should be easy, it's only four letters, but the thing is, it's not easy, even if it were three letters. We don't have a unilateral definition of the soul. We don't know where the soul "lives" in the body. We don't know if the soul is separate from our earthly experiences. All we have is a hopeful maybe.

Belief, Bible Study, Gospels, John, Luke, Mark, Matthew, New Testament, Parables

In Which I Don't Write Very Coherently About Fig Trees, But At Least Try My Best

Mike Bevel

A sentence you'll read when you Google "figs and wasps" is in a caption to a photo of a wasp and a fig: "A female fig wasp descends through the ostiole into the center of the fig plant's syconium." This is all clearly a private matter and none of our business but it is my responsibility to tell you that when you eat a fig, you're also eating a wasp. Or at least wasp eggs. Maybe it's wasp larva. The point is, I didn't read much of the article; I'm a headlines kinda guy.

Belief, Bible Study, God, Job, Old Testament, Ruth, Tanakh

"Your God Shall Be My God": The Book of Ruth

Mike Bevel

In many ways, The Book of Ruth is a gentle echo of The Book of Job. In Job, we witness a righteous man destroyed for a wager who remains unwavering in his faith right up until he asks, "But why?" The Book of Ruth is also about a life interrupted by Divine Intervention. It's Job with a happier ending, but the same unsettling questions about how we interact with God, and how God can interact with us.